Over the last few years, Michigan football’s success has been largely attributed to its defense as it has won Big Ten titles, advanced to the College Football Playoffs, and ultimately won its first national championship in 26 years. Over the last three seasons, the Wolverines have finished 40-3 while maintaining a top-10 scoring defense. As they won a national championship the previous season, they had the best scoring defense in the FBS, allowing just 10.4 points per contest. That team will need to adapt to coaching changes in addition to losing important players if it is to keep performing well.
Wink Martindale is the team’s new defensive coordinator, according to reports, as Michigan and new head coach Sherrone Moore have turned to him after coach Jim Harbaugh left for the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers, taking defensive coordinator Jesse Minter with him. If Martindale’s name sounds familiar, it should, even if he doesn’t share it with another well-known person.
For the Baltimore Ravens from 2018 to 21 and the New York Giants from 2022 to 23 for the last six seasons, the 60-year-old Martindale has served as an NFL defensive coordinator. In an evolving college football landscape, he will now be among the most important players in the effort to make sure Michigan football can sustain the notable progress it made during the last three years under Harbaugh’s coaching staff and continue to pose a threat for a national championship. Below is all the information you require about Martindale prior to him starting that project with the Wolverines:
The Career of WINK MARTINDALE COACHING Since 1986, when he began his coaching career as the defensive coordinator at his alma mater, Defiance College—a small, private institution located in northwest Ohio, some 35 miles south of the Michigan border—Martindale has been involved in coaching in some capacity. He had previously worked for his family’s trucking business for a year, making the arduous 6.5-hour round-trip drive to transport brake parts from Dayton to Detroit. The majority of Martindale’s coaching career has been in the NFL, where he has held a variety of positions since the 2004 season, despite his impending return to collegiate coaching. He has worked as a defensive coordinator for the Giants, Denver Broncos, and Ravens over the course of seven seasons.
Here’s a rundown of Martindale’s various coaching stops: 1986-87: Defiance College, defensive coordinator 1994-95: Notre Dame, defensive assistant 1996-98: Cincinnati, special teams and linebackers coach 1999: Western Illinois, defensive coordinator and linebackers coach 2000-03: Western Kentucky, defensive coordinator and inside linebackers coach 2004-08: Oakland Raiders, linebackers coach 2009: Denver Broncos, linebackers coach 2010: Denver Broncos, defensive coordinator 2012-17: Baltimore Ravens, linebackers coach 2018-21: Baltimore Ravens, defensive coordinator 2022-23: New York Giants, defensive coordinator
DEPARTURE OF WINK MARTINDALE GIANTS Martindale’s most recent NFL coaching gig ended with a somewhat strange farewell. Outside linebackers coach Drew Wilkins and his younger brother Kevin, a defensive assistant on staff, whom Martindale brought with him from Baltimore, were sacked by Giants coach Brian Daboll following their second season in the city. The New York Post reported that Martindale was furious at the decision, yelling at Daboll and slamming the door as he left the office.
Daboll had stated that he thought Martindale will be back for the 2024 campaign; nonetheless, rumors circulated that Martindale intended to step down. On January 10, following several days of tension, the parties reached a mutual agreement to separate. The defense ranking of Wink Martindale. The Broncos finished worst in both total and scoring defense, giving Martindale a disappointing start to his NFL defense coordinator tenure. His defenses with the Ravens were always among the best in the league, but in his last season, his performance declined and he was fired. During his two seasons there, the Giants never finished higher than 18th in total defense or scoring defense. Below is a ranking of every defense that Martindale oversaw during his time as coordinator. Orders are
2010 Broncos: 32nd in total defense, 32nd in scoring defense 2018 Ravens: 1st in total defense, 2nd in scoring defense 2019 Ravens: 4th in total defense, 3rd in scoring defense 2020 Ravens: 7th in total defense, 2nd in scoring defense 2021 Ravens: 25th in total defense, 19th in scoring defense 2022 Giants: 25th in total defense, 18th in scoring defense 2023 Giants: 27th in total defense, 26th in scoring defense
The Wink Martinez Defensive Strategy Martindale’s defenses are well-known for their blitz-heavy, aggressive style of play. The goal of the scheme is to overwhelm the line of scrimmage and apply pressure on the opposition quarterback by having players move around erratically before the snap to cause confusion. Before his first season as the Giants’ offensive coordinator in 2022, Martindale told reporters, “You want to dictate to the offense instead of sitting there and letting them dictate to you.”
Unlike Minter and Mike Macdonald, who coincidentally were also defensive assistants with the Ravens during Martindale’s tenure as defensive coordinator, it will be a bit of a philosophical shift for Michigan. The connection to the Harbauugh family The Wolverines’ new defensive coordinator has close links to the previous coach’s family, even if Harbaugh did not employ Martindale. For three seasons at Western Kentucky, Martindale oversaw defense for Jack Harbaugh’s father, Jim Harbaugh, as a member of the Hilltoppers staff that guided the team to the 2002 Division I-AA (now FCS) national championship.
He played with the Ravens for ten seasons, all of them under John Harbaugh, the older brother. Martindale played for the Ravens there, where they won the 2013 Super Bowl. IS THIS THE REAL NAME OF WINK MARTINDALE? Unfortunately, Martindale goes by Don rather than Wink. When Donald Brown, Martindale’s roommate and teammate, noticed Martindale’s name on a duffel bag when he was a freshman at Defiance, he started calling him “Wink,” a tribute to the well-known game show host, disc jockey, and radio personality Winston “Wink” Martindale.
